Differences Between, Early, Fast, and Auto-flowering Marijuana Plants

When you look at the different characteristics of marijuana plants being touted by many online seedbanks and breeders nowadays, you will see that one of the major selling points are those with early-flowering, fast flowering, and auto flowering characteristics. This is because a lot of growers want to save time from the usual several months of caring and growing their weed plants. With early, fast, and especially auto-flowering strains, several weeks are taken out from the calendar and the grower get to harvest earlier than the usual waiting period. But what exactly does it mean when they say am cannabis pot has early, fast or auto-flowering characteristics? To find out the answer we have to look at each of these qualities in a pot plant.

Early-Flowering Weed Plants

By early-flowering, it simply means that the plant has a shorter vegetation period and can flower earlier than the usual compared to a similar strain. There are ways to do this and one of which is to give the growing pot plants a lot of light during its flowering stage. There are also special solutions or chemicals used to make them flower early.

Fast-flowering Marijuana Plants

This is normally associated with early-flowering and the two are interchangeably used over the years especially in forums. But there is actually a difference between the two because fast-flowering marijuana plants refer to strains that finish flowering fast. Instead of a full-termed flowering, they finish earlier and the grower can therefore harvest immediately. There are ways to make this happen and expert growers have a way of doing it like flipping the flowering growth cycle.

Auto-flowering strains

Both early and fast flowering characteristics are just approximation of auto-flowering. There is no need for any kind of effort for the marijuana plant to flower in this regard. it will flower irrespective of the environment it is grown.

What about Early finishing strains, are they the same to any of the above?

It is the same with fast-flowering strains. It just means that the weed plant can finish flowering in a shorter period than the usual.

Is the Potency affected when a cannabis plant is early or fast flowering?

There are some suggestions that the potency is decreased due to fast flowering techniques applied and there is some truth to this. Conversely, no matter how long the pot plant stays in the flowering stage, it will not contribute to more potency once the same has reached its maximum level as dictated by its genetics.